ENG 1010

Insanity
In a society, its structure can be affected by different social factors. Factors such as
gender, culture, and time setting influence the foundation of a society. In. In A Rose for Emily
by William Faulkner and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emily Grierson
and a first-person narrator, also a woman are affected by a social structure where both women are
dependent factors in a male-dominating society. Their dependence on male-dominate is what
causes their insanity.
In A Rose for Emily, Emily Grierson became insane because of her inability to accept
death. Emilys family, especially her aristocratic father, held themselves a little too high for
what they were (Faulkner, 264). Her father was very controlling and chased away all her suitors
for marriage. However, his controlling ways were all Emily knew and lived by. When he died
Emily was in denial, unable to part with the corpse. She was threatened with a loss and led her
insanity to cling to that which he had robbed her. When she met Homer Barron, she wanted to
cling to him as well. She ends up killing him with rat poison and preserves the corpse. Suddenly,
she alienates herself and lives inside the house for the remainder of her life. Unable to accept
death, Emilys insanity becomes her defense to fill her need of male dependence. Without it, she
is lost.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, the woman becomes insane because a male-dominating
society ceased to ignore the severity of her mental condition. During the summer, the woman and
her family are living away. Due to her nervous condition- post partum depression- by her
husbands orders, she is restricted social interaction and writing. She becomes obsessed with the
yellow wallpaper in the room in which she is entrapped. She explains, there are things in that
wallpaper nobody knows about but me (Gilman, 307) and notices a woman behind the paper.

The woman represents how women are trapped by society behind the domesticated roles. During
the Victorian period, women ere expected to assume all the domestic responsibilities and
maintain a social status for their husbands. In such social structure, women were ignored. The
womans husband, a physician, failed to listen to her needs. Instead, he would dismiss her,
calling her names like little goose. The wallpaper reflects her entrapment by the dominant
social role of males in society. She becomes insane when she begins to tear down the wallpaper
to free the woman as well as others inside. Unfortunately, her insanity has convinced her that she
comes from behind the wallpaper, trapped like the other women.
Emily Grierson and the narrator were pushed to insanity in a society that favors male
dominance. The social matrix, the controlling idea of the society believed males were superior.
Males were seen as reliable and dependable because of their important social roles they carry out
as physicians, factory workers etc. The social roles people carry out in a society create
expectations and pressures they must fulfill.